Ultimately the campaign’s biggest flaw is that it perpetuates the notion that consumers somehow “define themselves” with the technology they choose. If you truly believe you need to pick a mobile phone that “says something” about your personality, don’t bother. You don’t have a personality. A mental illness, maybe – but not a personality.

I’m adding this a day after the original post because someone who read this sent it to me. Unfortunately the original article by Ed Stroglio from Overclockers has disappeared but here’s the excerpt :

For PCers, a computer is a tool, an animated screwdriver. You don’t have an “experience” with a screwdriver. It either works well or it doesn’t. If it does, you like it; if it doesn’t, you don’t. You don’t admire its aesthetic features, or find one a reflection of your good taste, or a symbol that proves you’re an {fill in the blanks: admirable, special, creative, artistic} person.

For Macsters, it’s just the opposite. The object is an extension of themselves just as much as their clothing or interior decoration, it’s a part of them in a way a PC never is for a PCer. One might think case modders or overclockers [or developers] in general might be more prone to the Mac outlook, but that’s not really so. What such people are proud of is not mere ownership of the equipment, but what they’ve done to it to make it what it is. It’s a much more hands-on sense of accomplishment: what has been done rather than what it was out of the box. For such people, telling them that a Dell is cheaper and better is like telling them that Old Navy overalls are cheaper and last longer than Dolce & Gabbana jeans. When you do that, what they hear is, “Be a common pig like the rest of us” when the whole point of the purchase is to prove the opposite. If this is incomprehensible to you, well, that’s why you own a PC and not a Mac. But if this description sounds like someone you know who is already a Mac user, or is prone to becoming one, this is why the standard arguments for buying a PC falls on deaf ears. You’re thinking screwdriver; they’re thinking fashion outfit.

Warning

When this blog got transferred from LiveSpaces some of the code formatting got messed up. I'm fixing this when I can be arsed (which isn't often) but if there's something bugging you let me know and I may have mercy.